


And the raging sea grew calm

by hydrangea



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Romance, The Problem of Susan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-18 02:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2332526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrangea/pseuds/hydrangea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m Jonah—and thank you for the offer, but I wouldn’t deprive you of your own comfort.”</p><p>“Jonah. A lovely name—I’m Susan, Susan Pevensie.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the raging sea grew calm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nasimwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasimwrites/gifts).



**Autumn**

The wind was chilly on top of the battlements. It found its way beneath hems and tunneled down the back of coats until the cold had seeped into your very core. The bright sunlight that had appeared to promise a warm autumn day back at the guest house now seemed bleak. Buttoning the top-most button of his wool coat, Jonah regretted not taking the scarf his hostess had pushed at him.

“The weather is unpredictable this time a year,” she’d said. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least try to warn you.”

He’d thanked her of course, but with this being the first time in a decade without the noose of ties and tight-collared shirts, he’d not been keen to accept her offer. With the wet air slowly turning him into little more than an ice statue, he was honest enough to admit he’d been quite a fool.

A stray cat jumped down from partly crumbled wall in front of him, tangling itself around his feet. Jonah nudged it gently away, keeping his balance against the wall. “No scratches today,” he told it, receiving a narrowed stare in reply. “No," he repeated. "I'm sorry."

There was a soft laugh. “In my experience, cats – whether small or great – set their own minds and very rarely change them.”

The voice – a woman’s voice – came from above him. Jonah shaded his eyes; all he could see was a tall and slim figure in what looked like quite an expensive coat, sensible heeled boots and a halo of grey-streaked dark hair.

“I have come much to the same conclusion,” he admitted. “This fight, however, I’m afraid he won’t win.”

The woman's eyes twinkled. “Indeed.”

He climbed the last few steps to the top and straightened up to fully take in the vista in front of him. The sea, crashing in white crests against the cliffs; the town, nestled between the water and high cliffs above; the ancient and not quite as ancient battlements hidden among crags and bushes around them.

For a moment, the memories carved into the cliffs by nature and man both were his entire world. Then the wind coming in from the sea hit his face and all of the sudden, he was intensely, all-encompassing cold. The shudder that followed sent his teeth clattering and he once again sent a rueful thought towards the generous scarf most likely still hanging in the hallway at the guest house.

“Here. The weather can be deceiving in a place like this—you really ought to…” The woman trailed off, the scarf she held out dangling awkwardly between them as he met her eyes. “Oh. You’re…”

The bitter sting of resentment and anger made the smile he forced onto his face far too sarcastic to be genuine. “I’m Jonah—and thank you for the offer, but I wouldn’t deprive you of your own comfort.”

“Jonah. A lovely name—I’m Susan, Susan Pevensie.” She took his hand and pushed the scarf into it, her fingers deceptively strong for all that they looked fragile in their slenderness. “And I’m sorry—for a moment you reminded me of someone I…knew. A long time ago.”

“I can’t take—“ he protested, feeling a flush settling over his cheeks as her words neatly pricked the balloon of indignation that had built inside him. He certainly had cause to mistrust the double-takes of most people who caught a closer look of his mixed features and darker skin; he did, however, also think better of himself than to consider the worst of all who did so.

“I have another one—a bit too fancy for the occasion but certainly capable of doing its job.” Her smile was slightly rueful as she retrieved a silk scarf that had most likely cost at least as much as his not wholly inexpensive coat. The scarf in his hand, in contrast, was woolen and uneven – the handiwork of someone that loved knitting more than they had skill. It was, however, warm and comfortable as he wound it around his neck. There was a faint smell of perfume still sticking to it and he couldn’t help but smile as the scent of lilacs enveloped him.

“Are you from around here then,” he asked idly, following her movements as she pushed stray locks of her hair behind her ears.

“Goodness, no! I did, however, live in a place very much like this in my youth.” She laughed as she said this, but to Jonah’s ears, it sounded to come at least half again as much from sadness as joy. “I’m aware of the mischief the weather is up to in places like this. I think I might very well have come here to…relive it, for lack of other word.”

“I can understand that.” Jonah smiled a little to himself as he found his eyes once again drawn to her face—she was a beautiful woman, for sure, but there was more than that that attracted him. There was something different about her—something queenly, something beyond the simple but elegant woman standing in front of her. Something that made her just as – or perhaps even more – alone as his own heritage did in a country that had yet to fully get used to differences among her citizens.

They talked a bit more after that, keeping each other company as they watched the winds drive the water against the cliffs. The cat from before appeared once again from the nook it had hidden in, curling up on Susan’s feet and purring.

“Are you staying here for long?” Susan asked as they finally began to make their way back, stepping into the main tower.

“Only for a day or two more.” He had meant this holiday to be a brief respite before he traveled across the country to settle into his new home. Something—perhaps the way his mouth wanted to smile and the way his heart warmed at the sound of her voice—said that there might be something else waiting for him here.

He crossed the threshold into one of the chapels, turning towards where the altar had once been by habit. The sun fell on his face as he raised it towards the window above and it, as always, felt like he’d just come home for all that this place had been unused for what was most likely centuries.

“You look at home here.”

Jonah turned around. Susan was still standing outside in the shadows. “In some ways, I suppose it is. Are you…?” He was going to say ‘coming’, but something in her face stopped him.

“It’s been a long time since I…had that.” She laughed—as much over herself as the situation. “Dear me, I tell you a lot of rubbish, don’t I.”

“It’s not rubbish.” It was more like fright he though, fright and loneliness.

“Perhaps. I do know that I’m beginning to feel cold, however. I don’t suppose I could tempt you into sharing a meal with me down in town? I’m starting to feel rather peckish.”

For a moment, he was breathless; possibilities churned inside him. Then he laughed, “I could do with a warm meal.”

“I think we both could.” She took the arm he held out, her fingers burning him even through his coat. “I believe I know the perfect place.”

“Then I’ll put my trust in you.”

She seemed almost startled by the thought, and for a moment, he thought that she would pull away. But to his surprise, half a beat later she just smiled. “And I in you.”

A curious statement to make over a meal, but, somehow, Jonah thought that he knew exactly what she meant.

 

 **Spring**

“Susan?”

Jonah hesitated half-way down the path to the newer plots at the cemetery. There was something about the straight back of the woman standing by a family plot covered liberally in ivy and crowned by a stylized lion in gilded stone that seemed familiar. It had been a few days since he’d last seen Susan, her employer keeping her busy and the restrictions of his own position keeping him from visiting her in London. To meet her here, in a small cemetery several hours out of London, seemed unlikely, and yet...and yet he knew those clenched hands, that neatly fitted jacket and elegant sweep of hair.

The woman’s shoulders tensed for the briefest of moments, and then she turned around.

“Jonah?”

The smile found its way to his lips on its own, his heart skipping a beat at the joy of seeing her. “I didn’t expect to meet you here.”

He didn’t walk up to her. They had been seeing each other for several weeks, but there were still things that, for Susan, seemed too private to share—and her family had, so far, been one of those things. He sensed, however, that…something had happened to either cause them to become estranged or lose them in a more permanent way. Susan was one of the strongest women he’d known besides his mother but in some ways, she was very vulnerable.

To his surprise, however, Susan smiled and came up to him, moving in to kiss his cheek. “I’m glad to see you.”

His arms came up to embrace her automatically. “I came to see my parents.”

Her nose skimmed his neck as she turned her head into his shoulder. He suppressed improper heat lighting in the pit of his stomach, turning instead his attention to smooth his hand down her back in a soothing manner.

“So did I.” Susan pulled away. For a moment she seemed to hesitate, but then she took his hand. “Come with me to see my family? I would love to introduce you.”

Jonah squeezed her hand. “I would love to meet them.”

There were more names on the headstone than Jonah had expected there to be—and the dates carved into the stone told him much of why Susan might be hesitant to talk about her family.

“A train accident.” Her voice gave no hint of any greater emotional state than mild sadness, but Jonah nevertheless pulled her to his side. From the way she curled into him, he didn’t think it was at all unwelcome. “My brothers and sister, my cousin and his friend—they all passed away. My mother…I’m afraid she never fully recovered. When mother passed away, my father didn’t stay behind for long.”

“They must’ve loved each other very much.” More than his own parents, Jonah thought, who, the last years of their lives, had been little more than strangers. “You must have had a difficult time.”

“Yes.”

There was a dull anger in the word, along with more grief than he might’ve expected. Unable not to try to ease her pain, he pulled her closer and kissed her temple.

“Would you like to tell me about it?”

Susan laughed, and then hiccuped as laughter broke into a half-sob. She turned into his shoulder—it was an instinct of hers, he had learned, to hide when she was hurt rather than to show the world.

“Take me home?” she requested. “I would like to tell you…but I think I need a drink first. Or at the very least a fortifying cup of tea.”

“I can do that,” he agreed.

He didn’t suggest that they’d go to his home; for all that it was closer. There was some things, he had learned, that he couldn’t ask of her. For her to come to the small cottage he rented just off the church property was one of them.

They were halfway to the exit when Susan spoke. “I love you, you know.”

Jonah’s stomach flipped at the words—this wasn’t the first time she told him, but neither did it happen often. “I love you too.”"

There was a small smile on Susan’s lips when he looked over, unable not to when his heart was trying to leap out of his chest and curl up next to hers. He never wanted to let her go, he realized in the silence of his own mind. This was the woman he wanted, for good or bad.

He laughed a little, earning himself a curious look from Susan. He shook his head. “Just a curious thought,” he told her. “I’ll tell you eventually.”

“I see.” She stepped closer and tip-toed up to kiss his cheek. “I hope that will be soon.”

Turning the cheek kiss into a proper one, he then took her hand as they resumed their walk. “So do I.”

In fact, he thought to himself, he really hoped it would be quite soon indeed.

 

**Summer**

"Excuse me?"

Jonah looked up from the boxes of sheet music he'd been going through, aiming a smile at the young woman hovering in the doorway. "Welcome," he told her. "Can I help you somehow?"

The woman laughed a bit awkwardly. "I believe so? Pastor Graham told me that you'd be the person to see."

"Of course." Jonah put the lids on his boxes--not without a certain relief. It had been a very generous donation, but one that had also been very poorly maintained. It would take quite some time to take inventory of what exactly the boxes held. "Let's take a seat in the kitchen--do you drink tea? Coffee?"

The offer and subsequent silence as Jonah puttered around the kitchen appeared to calm the woman down and by the time he put a cup in front of her she was comfortable enough to smile brightly at him.

"Thank you--I'm sorry, I know you can't have expected visitors today."

"It's quite all right." Jonah sat down and reached for the sugar--his eyes tried to dart to the pale strip of skin on his ring finger, but he wrenched them away, ignoring the way his chest clenched unpleasantly. "What brings you here, miss...?"

"Clara. Clara McTavish."

"Clara." He smiled at her.

Clara smiled back, but the way she kept turning the cup in her hands said she wasn't feeling half as comfortable as he would've liked. "I...have a friend. A close friend--and, I promise, it isn't me." She laughed a bit nervously. "He's been ill for a long time--the doctors don't know what's wrong with him. They aren't certain that he will recover."

"I'm sorry." Instinct made him want to reach over and take her hand, but something about her rigid shoulders stopped him.

"We've come to terms with it." Her voice didn't shake at all when she spoke of her friend, he noticed, but it was nevertheless filled with pain. "That...that is not the problem."

He waited, not wanting to interrupt her. When she didn't speak, he searched for something to say and--for some reason, somehow--found himself speaking of the matter that had send him to the windowless storage room for donations that had yet to be sorted out.

"I had a fiance--Susan--who I love very much. I would do anything for her--as long as it impacted no one but myself." He laughed ruefully. "She's the woman I want to marry and spend my life with."

Clara looked curious. "You said 'had'--did she...did she die?"

"No--goodness, no. She is, however, a woman of many secrets." Secrets she had been sharing with him, one by one, and some that he had come to realize on his own. "This is, of course, nothing wrong in itself--even the closest of relationships have secrets. One of her secrets, however, she was deathly afraid to tell anyone--to the point that she needed to tell herself that the secret didn't exist."

 _'I can't face them,'_ Susan had told him once, curled up next to him in the hammock outside his cottage. He had always found it charming how she sought to be close to him when she confided in him, but this time, there had been an ugly feeling stirring inside him. _'I can't face Him.'_

She had never told him exactly who she meant when she spoke about that matter, but he had long since made his own conclusion of who they were.

_'They wouldn't be angry. And who's to say that you were wrong? Not everyone can walk the same paths.'_

She'd laughed then. _'I wonder that. I truly do.'_

"I have a secret like that." Clara almost whispered the words, as if unsure whether to speak at all. "I know I need to tell him, but I can't. I'm too afraid, too--it makes it real. I'm not sure I can stand if it is real."

_'If I pretend it wasn't real...maybe one day it won't be.'_

_'Don't run away. Please, love, I'm right beside you.'_

For a moment, Jonah wanted to forget who he was, forget his duties and simply tell this woman to do what she wished--but she wasn't Susan and her friend wasn't he. He forced himself to take a deep breath, to find the part of him that had called him to this work and that would never give someone advise based on his own emotions.

"You know what to do--what is right for the two of you," he told her gently. "Otherwise, you would not have come here."

And from the way something in her eyes cleared, he knew that he'd been right.

_'I can't do this--Jonah, I'm sorry. I can't face them--'_

_'I love you, Susan, but I can't give up my calling for you.'_

The evening shadows had grown long and dark by the time he walked across the park to reach the service entrance to the church. Pastor Graham's shoes and outer wear was already gone--Jonah was later than he'd though he'd be. He'd sent Clara off with an eased mind--and with his own, once again, filled with regret. He knew that he had done the right thing, but his heart would not stop hurting for all that he knew that he had.

"Jonah!"

Looking over his shoulder, Jonah smiled as he saw Pastor Graham come around the corner. "Good evening."

"Good evening, yourself." Pastor Graham nodded towards the cottage that Jonah rented from the church. "I hope that the visit went well."

"I believe so."

"Yes, I thought that would be the case. She seemed as if she would be more suited for your temperament than mine." Pastor Graham laughed. " Only God knows why he called me to service with a face like this--but that isn't what I came to tell you." He fell silent, and Jonah was just about to prompt him when Pastor Graham nodded, slowly. "You have a visitor. I told them to wait for you inside--we had a little talk as we waited."

"I...see." Jonah tried to think of someone that would visit--at this time a day, the possibilities where limited.

"Well, go on then!" Pastor Graham told him when Jonah didn't move. "Don't keep them waiting."

He didn't know who he had expected to see when he stepped inside--perhaps one of his friends, or someone he had worked with. He certainly hadn't expected to see a familiar straight back in the front-most pew.

"Susan." Her name slipped out before he could see his face--there was no doubt inside him.

She turned towards him, and even at this distance he could see that her face was stained with tears. "Jonah."

His feet quickened their pace without any input from him. "I--you--you're here."

"I found my courage." She laughed--and there was no sadness in it, only a strange sense of joy. "I faced them. Jonah, I faced Him."

"And were I right?" He sat down next to her, couldn't stop his hands from reaching for her face and wiping at her cheeks. She leaned into his touch, her eyes closing.

"'There's no right or wrong way'." She sounded as if she was quoting something. "'Only the way you walk.'"

He didn't really understand what she was telling him. He didn't particularly care. She was _here._

"Jonah." Something in her voice made him meet her eyes. Made his heart pound. "Will you marry me?"

There was only one answer he could give.


End file.
